In the video for his new single "Dropkick," Marco Benevento is having a boozy night with a hot woman who lures him into a motel room. We don't really get to see his face, because he's wearing a life-like tiger head, and when the woman, played by model Amy Hood, ties him up at gun point, we think she's after his money. But no. It turns out she's after his tiger head. Weird. Must not be just any ol' tiger head.

"Dropkick" is a single off the artist's sixth studio release, The Story of Fred Short, which is due out April 1. The single and the album feature Benevento as singer, a role the keyboardist took on for the first time on his previous album, 2014's Swift. And the song exhibits his groovy, funky, pop stylings, hinting at the dance and jam possibilities that emerge during his live engagements.

Benevento, 36, whose home base is Saugerties, N.Y., where he lives with his wife and two daughters, is kicking off a tour in support of the new album with a show at the Fox Theatre on Friday, March 18 (he also hits Cervantes' Other Side in Denver on Saturday, March 19, and the Center for the Arts in Crested Butte on Sunday, March 20). He talked with us recently about the new album, the identity of the album's namesake and his hazy memories of meeting David Bowie:

Q: Who's Fred Short, and what's his story?

A: It's the street that I live on, and I've always sort of wondered that myself. I'm here in upstate New York, (near) Woodstock, about three miles from (the late drummer for The Band) Levon Helm's barn ... I looked online and asked around the neighbors, and they sort of clued me in that he was like a native American shaman, kind of like a big deal. He built instruments and held vision quests and owned a lot of land around here ... I went to go pick up a piano that I found on Craigslist that I found from this old guy, and we loaded it into the car, and I was leaving and he said "Oh, where do you live?" and I was like, "On Fred Short Road," and he was like, "Oh, this piano was actually in Fred Short's family," and I was like, "What?!" And I took the piano home and actually that night I wound up improvising music for an hour and a half and sort of had that on my mind, like, "Who the hell is this person?" And basically Side B of the record ... is that improvisation but scaled down to 30 minutes. So I basically had a little vision quest of my own.

Q: Saugerties does have some pretty cool history. The house the Big Pink (once occupied by members of The Band) is in town. And apparently Jimmy Fallon grew up there, and his folks still live there. Do you know the Fallons?

A: No, I don't. I know the Big Pink. I've been there a couple times. Do you know the Fallons?

Q: No, but I don't live in the same town as they do, like you do.

A: His name comes up. Some of my friends know him, or his family or something. I've never met him. I haven't seen him at the local watering hole yet. But the Big Pink -— you know those guys were doing amazing stuff, like doing home recordings back then, reel-to-reel recorders, that was some good shit.

Q: Wikipedia has a list of notable people from Saugerties, and it's almost 20 people long, and I looked in vain for your name. What's up with that?

A: Oh, man. Go ahead, you just should add it. Or this interview can put us in there.

Q: Once this interview is published, it will prove you're notable.

A: Exactly.

Q: I thought Amy's character in the "Dropkick" video, when she lures you into a room, was going to take your money or something. But she just takes your tiger mask. Is there some deeper meaning to that, which you all know and we have to figure out?

A: You'll find out what the cool, deeper meaning is. Yes.

Q: How's your voice working out? Is it old hat for you to sing now, or are you still learning how to use your voice as an instrument?

A: It's definitely not old hat. I'm learning how to sing better and I'm learning how to focus the pitch and everything, to fine tune. But in the second time around with this record — the first time around being Swift — I felt less like a beginner, even though I'm still very much a beginner. I felt it wasn't my first time doing this. I felt a little more inspired and less scared of the task at hand. Like, how do I write words to things? I've never done that, and it's kind of crazy to say that after 30-plus years of playing music. I never really wrote my own lyrics.

Q: I saw a picture you posted of David Bowie giving you a diploma at the Berklee College of Music. I have two questions about that. What was David Bowie doing handing you a diploma? And the caption says it's circa 1999 — most people remember the year they graduated college.

A: I don't really remember much about college. That one picture, that's in my parents' living room, is David Bowie handing me my diploma, and I see that every once in a while and I'm like, "Yeah, that did happen, didn't that?" I thought it was somewhere around 1999. But he was the guest speaker. He and Wayne Shorter were the guest speakers at the graduation.

Q: Do you remember anything about what he said?

A: Dude, c'mon.

Q: Being it was David Bowie, I was thinking, even if you were hungover or whatever ...

A: You know what, the only thing I remember him doing a lot was he kept on putting his hands up to his head and, like those devil horns with his hands. Like, close to his eyes, making little devil horns with his pointer fingers. And then he gave me my diploma, and I didn't have to go to school anymore.

Q: And the rest is history. I feel like you're in Colorado a lot. Is that true?

A: It's totally true. I'm there like four times a year probably. Maybe five times a year. There are so many music lovers there and there are so many cool places to go. It's so beautiful, the mountains, it's just so nice to be in a beautiful part of the country, quite honestly.

Q: Anything else?

A: Dave Dreiwitz has been my bass player for the last like five years, and he also plays with Ween. He's been in Ween for a while, and they just had their reunion shows in Colorado. So it would be cool to mention Dave Dreiwitz is playing bass. And Andy Borger is playing drums, and he's toured with Norah Jones and Tom Waits, and he's been my drummer for the last five years. They're just badass musicians.

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story